NGC 48V golf cart troubleshooting NO GUZZI CONTENT

[fotoguzzi]

my Dad (94)

 has a Club car 48V golf cart..(about 2003) batteries not charging. I tested the charger, which in total cost me over 300 miles in drive time. to/from the nearest dealer (Guzzi content) the normal dealer, (20 miles) Doug, is in Florida for the winter, he's a good guy who helped me trouble shoot over the phone..
fuse tests good. all the battery terminals have a good coat of grease and no corrosion. they test at from 7.89 to 8.1 so near full charge? the cart still drives but Doug says that normal even with a bad OBC..
from Google i suspect the on board computer (OBC) this thing decides to let the charger do it's job.
found a cheat around on line
https://www.impactbattery.com/blog/2016/12/why-and-how-to-bypass-the-club-car-onboard-computer/
however after a lot of frustrating time trying to connect the black cable to the charger input receptacle because there's no room for a lead to fit  ... I got it hooked up and it still didn't charge.. Doug says that's a dangerous solution too..

I found a re-set the OBC on line.
https://alltraxinc.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/Doc120-048-A_TN011-Rebooting-Club-Car-OBC.pdf

"    The reverse buzzer will sound and go off in about 30
seconds. Leave the cart like that for 5 min to cause the
OBC to reset. " this buzzer never happens. (I do know the buzzer works tho).and that's what leads me to think the OBC is dead, make sense?

asking you guys because a new OBC is in the range of $460. according to Doug. .. I have not yet looked around for better deals.. plus it comes with a wiring harness that needs to be snaked thru the frame/body from rear into the under seat compartment, time consuming.. Dad can afford to pay someone other  than me for that job..

they use it to get the mail, visit down the shoreline and haul the garbage up the long driveway, captured here by my backyard cam.


here's a little video of Mom getting the mail, isn't she cute?
https://photos.smugmug.com/Guzzi/i-RDtpx73/0/6d7d6cd8/1280/2018121821375220-IMG_4007-1280.mp4

[oldbike54]

 Yes she is .

 Dusty

[lucian]

individually, the batteries should test out at 12v each fully charged. You'll need to disconnect the series and have each battery charged and load tested. One bad cell out of the four will send the whole thing bonkers. If the batteries all check out , then a broken connection or wire, or the OBC is the likely culprit.

ps, you may want to try charging the batteries individually with a regular 12v auto  charger.  With the OBC, and cart charger, if the voltage is below a certain level it will not initiate charging as it sees this as a fault. 

[fotoguzzi]

No, they are 8 volt batteries... 6x8=48v

[lucian]

Sorry FG, ours  always had 4/ 12's and nine times out of ten it would be a dead cell in one of them.

[gearman]

Sorry FG, ours  always had 4/ 12's and nine times out of ten it would be a dead cell in one of them.

I posted and then removed after I realized that I did not know what I was talking about.So you are saying that the charger will not attempt to charge the batteries?Does the charger indicate what the problem is?

[Sheepdog]

An 8 volt battery should test at 8.49 volts if 100% charged. The voltages that you cited reflect a battery that is only 50% (or less) charged. Check out the batteries. If they appear to be bulging out on the sides, they're toast. If you must replace the batteries, bite the bullet and buy them from Trojan. They are more expensive, but hold up to use in a cart better than others.
 

[fotoguzzi]

The OBC is preventing the charger from even turning on so I'm not able to bring the batteries up to full charge. This happened suddenly, was working fine a week or two ago.
I'm planning to have my brother haul it to a shop now.

[Rick in WNY]

OK, so the computer that controls the charger is on the cart? Lovely....

If the charger isn't even turning on, that's a good candidate.

[fotoguzzi]

Just to close out the thread, I got a different dealer to do a 40 mile drive to pick it up and when it got to the shop the charger worked.. scratch head..
He said a bumpy ride on the trailer might have jiggled a bad battery enough to make connection.. so after charging over night, they took charge but failed a load test.. the batteries were 9 years old and are now being replaced ($1100 top of the line Trojan batteries).. I think that included a $110 charge for pick up and delivery. The dealer Todd was fantastic to work with over the phone. He must have been hungry for some business cause he jumped on the task as soon as I called him.